Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Keep the Russiagate Revenue Flying

Talk about amplifying a bellicose propaganda campaign. Right in the middle of the New York Times's latest "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!" front page scare-story is a hyperlink to "narrative architect" Molly McKew's piece in Politico. That piece, which I wrote about here, itself had amplified and hyperlinked to numerous other fear-mongering articles written by the gigantic pulsating hive mind of the corporate media. 

However, since the Times piece was ostensibly about the leaders of the Intelligence Hive Mind amplifying the fear in sworn testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, the sneaky hyperlink insertion was necessarily discreet:
 Russia appears eager to spread information — real and fake — that deepens political divisions. Bot armies promoted partisan causes on social media, including the recent push to release a Republican congressional memo critical of law enforcement officials.
  The Times felt no obligation inform its readers that its linked source, Molly McKew, is a Washington lobbyist posing as a pundit who gets paid big bucks by a couple of Eastern European oligarchs who'd simply love to get rid of Vladimir Putin, who got an outsize share of the loot when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The public instead must be informed that "Russia" is out to destroy American democracy by its constant meddling, and that Donald Trump, by dint of his own failure to condemn Russia all day and every day, is thereby a traitor to his country as well as a likely money-launderer and grifter. What better way to start a war and scapegoat a president, even as they merrily give this same traitorous president billions more dollars than he asked for to continue waging undeclared wars in the Middle East, Africa, and beyond?

If the Media-Political Complex can keep our eyes exclusively glued on Trump and his tabloid bromance with Putin, they won't even need to write a scary front-page story about his American drones just having killed hundreds of people in Syria! When they do report this horror, the targets were only "mercenaries," or "Russians," if not reduced to a solid baker's dozen. In some accounts, since their very nationalities are in doubt, their very humanity is in doubt. They are, in the long run, probably nobody at all. No big deal. Trump's sin is not that he murders and maims people, but that he occasionally has had nice things to say about his frenemy. He is a very convenient smokescreen indeed. When propaganda high beams are leveled at a fog, the cloud only becomes more opaque. And isn't that the whole point?

Meanwhile, as the Times breathlessly informs us: 
Russia is already meddling in the midterm elections this year, the top American intelligence officials said on Tuesday, warning that Moscow is using a digital strategy to worsen the country’s political and social divisions.
Russia is using fake accounts on social media — many of them bots — to spread disinformation, the officials said. European elections are being targeted, too, and the attacks were not likely to end this year, they warned.
“We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,” Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee at its annual hearing on worldwide threats.
Dan Coats is repeating Molly McKew's talking points right down to the letter. The agenda, obviously, is to cast all domestic dissent as Russian propaganda. American citizens, the majority of whom don't even have a few hundred bucks stashed away to pay for an emergency car repair, would be so satisfied with their lives if it weren't for those Russian bots and trolls amplifying stuff on social media. And if you do dare complain, and if you do express healthy skepticism about the source of your pain and suffering, the implication is that you're really no better than Trump:
The warnings were striking in their contrast to President Trump’s public comments. He has mocked the very notion of Russian meddling in the last election and lashed out at those who suggested otherwise.
The Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Mark Warner, re-amplified the pivot point "tell" of McKew's flimsy Narrative Architecture, which maintains that even though the dissent might initially be all-American, the fact that "Russian bots" are co-opting it renders it dangerous and meaningless and downright unpatriotic - especially when citizens start accusing the FBI, the NSA and the CIA of political motivations:
 “Other threats to our institutions come from right here at home,” he said. “There have been some, aided and abetted by Russian internet bots and trolls, who have attacked the basic integrity of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department. This is a dangerous trend.”
Translation: Shut up, get off the streets, return to your homes, lock your doors, draw the curtains and love Big Brother as he spies upon you for your own good. Your thinking has been corrupted, but we're here to help you and purify you and keep you safe.

 The only dangerous trend I could see in that paragraph was Mark Warner himself. If anything, he is even scarier than Donald Trump, because he cloaks himself with such a patina of phony virtue.

7 comments:

paintedjaguar said...

We already have flack, huckster, spin doctor, snake-oil salesman, propagandist, public relations executive, VP in Charge of Marketing, etc., not to mention "lying whore". Do we really need "narrative architect" in our vocabulary?

Mark Thomason said...

It is good that you note about Russia the real contest, between a Putin of many flaws, and the kleptocrats he ousted who were in many ways far worse, far more corrupt, and had ruined Russia out of pure selfish greed. There are no good guys, and Putin is not the worst among them. We can say that without liking him, a matter of degrees of bad.

Comrade said...

What scares me more than possible war against Russia in one form or another, or more money for the MIC, is the threat to our future elections from our own 'Intelligence Community', that cabal of professional lying criminals who routinely violate our Rights (our true and only Entitlements) in service to warlords of the Deep State.

The danger signs are not just in their making Russia the new villain based on no evidence and hyping it endlessly through the compliant stenographers of corporate media, but making themselves into heroes with credibility *cough*cough. They all enforce the no laughing, no questioning rule to silence thinking minds. The cockamamie propaganda campaign that they're pushing on us is done with the total support of the same bipartisan gang of politicians, intelligence goons, and media who pushed Hillary on us with the label of Most Experienced And Qualified Ever. In other words, a real player.

I think the root of all this Russia hysteria is actually fear of US, the voters. We elected the 'wrong' person and most importantly, could do so again. Their real fear is that we'll elect someone who won't follow/obey their agenda. But now, with their new Russia card, anyone who wins the Presidency who isn't under their thumb financially or otherwise (more unregulated domestic surveillance for 'Trump' makes some sense) could be quickly and easily discredited and delegitimized by playing their new Russia card. It has no expiration date.

How else would they manage future candidates who win elections who aren't their servants? How else to manage candidates who are wealthy free agents not beholden AND who even imagine they are Boss just because they're President? Dangerous. Now that they know just how fragile this semblance of 'democracy' really is (how we can ignore unanimous media endorsements) they realize there is too much invested, domestically and globally, to risk letting the little people like us put someone in office who might jeopardize it all.

Don't tell me they're not willing to gin up a war to hold onto that power.

Don't tell me they're not willing to prevent or thwart an independent President who won't follow their game plan.

Don't tell me they're not willing to destroy democracy along with those who advocate for a better country and world if they're a threat to 'order'.

You know they will because they have. Recall all their 'interventions' at home and abroad.

My advice is to never give up. Keep voting and supporting good candidates, but don't settle for lesser evil because we'll still get evil and we've had quite enough of that. Always keep in mind who TPTB want to win. If for some reason you still can't figure it out, check the NYT and vote opposite. None of them are on our side.

Comrade said...

'Russian Meddling' is the new 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' and just as credible.

Comrade said...

My jaw dropped recently when the military was described as "cash-strapped" by NYT as well as CBS, NBC, and ABC news - all on the same day! This was during the so-called budget crisis a week or so ago. How could that have not been coordinated with the Pentagon? The media has to be getting some serious moola to push that 'poor military' lie, otherwise they'd just stick with mindlessly ginning up outrage over Trump's Lie du Jour.

If the military is suddenly cash-strapped and poor, it could only be from continuous expansion of wars and because the Pentagon is spending down their black budget to pay for media propaganda so they can plead poverty and ask for even more. Major General Smedley Butler had it right - 'War Is a Racket'. You can still read his screed which is more relevant than ever:

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Comrade said...

Message to Russia: Do not meddle in elections - the U.S. Government hates competition!

Oh No, Not Her Again! said...

The 'Russians' sure did the CIA and FBI's work for them, didn't they? By 'supporting' Trump, Bernie, and Black Lives Matter, they tainted all 3 with suspicion of treason or whatever the crime du jour is. Score 1 for the Deep State playing their newly minted Russia Card.

You'd think those sinister 'Russians' would have used gun control ads and rallies to sow discord if that's what they were up to. Instead, they paid for a few tongue-in-cheek ads like the one of Hillary vs. Jesus and Bernie as a buffed up superhero that people laughed off. They could easily have had Americans at each others' throats! Kind of proves that Putin was not behind this. He's not stupid.

Sorry, but I'm not buying Mueller's theory of the case. Inserting Bernie's name at every opportunity is the giveaway for me.